After HBO program, a surge of tourists flock to Chernobyl...

1of48A playground in the deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine, some 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012. Workers on Tuesday raised the first section of a colossal arch-shaped structure that is planned to eventually cover the exploded reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station. Project officials on Tuesday hailed the raising as a significant step in a complex effort to liquidate the consequences of the world's worst nuclear accident, in 1986. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

2of48Russia is going to take a crack at telling the story of Chernobyl.

3of48Moments after the reactor explosion, Chernobyl burns.

4of48Photos: Chernobyl, 30 years later A doll and shoes lay on a bench in a nursery school of the "ghost town" of Pripyat near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 22, 2016. April 26, 2016 marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

5of48An amusement ride is seen in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

6of48Cars of the children autodrome are seen in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

7of48Pictured in this file image are posters featuring portraits of the Soviet Union's Communist Party officials in an abandoned culture center in the city of Pripyat near the Chernobyl power station. On April 26, 1986, the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded causing the world's worst nuclear disaster.

8of48A broken boat on the Pripyat River in the Khoiniksky District near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The Khoiniksky District was one of the most affected by the 26 April 1986 Chernobyl disaster. More than 20 thousand people were evacuated from the area during 20 years after the accident.

9of48An abandoned laboratory for growing fish at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is seen in Chernobyl, Ukraine on April 05, 2017. The Chernobyl accident occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat.

10of48An events hall is seen in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

11of48A graffiti painting is seen in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

12of48A sign saying "Stop! Forbidden Zone" is seen on the fence of Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

13of48A shopping cart is seen in a shop in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

14of48Portraits of leaders are seen in a house in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

15of48A worker renovates a memorial to technicians who died during and in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident on April 8, 2016 in Slavutych, Ukraine.

16of48Dogs are pictured near a sign of radioactivity set near a crucifix in ghost city of Prypyat near Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 8, 2016. Ukraine is preparing to mark 30 years since the Chernobyl disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident whose death toll remains a mystery and which continues to jeopardise the local population's health. More than 200 tonnes of uranium remain inside the reactor that exploded three decades ago at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, raising fears there could be more radioactive leaks if the ageing concrete structure covering the stricken reactor collapses.

17of48The building of a hotel in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

18of48A building with a radiation sign is seen in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

19of48An indoor football field is seen in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

20of48A graffiti painting is seen in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

21of48A wild fox walks in the deserted city of Pripyat, near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine, 22 December 2016. The new protective shelter over the remains of the nuclear reactor Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant will secure the affected fourth reactor. The shelter is over 105 metres tall and weighs 36,000 tons. The explosion of Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the early hours of 26 April 1986 is still regarded the biggest accident in the history of nuclear power generation.

22of48A picture taken on April 22, 2016 shows a gas mask in an abandoned building in the "ghost town" of Pripyat near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

23of48A picture taken on April 22, 2016 shows a deserted residential building in the "ghost town" of Pripyat near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

24of48A picture taken on April 22, 2016 shows a deserted residential building in the "ghost town" of Pripyat near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

25of48A checkpoint at an entrance to the village of Novoselki, Khoiniksky District, located in 30 km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Belarus.

26of48Measuring radiation level in an abandoned school building in the village of Tulgovichi, Khoiniksky District, located in 30 km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

27of48Measuring radiation level in the village of Tulgovichi, Khoiniksky District, located in 30 km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

28of48An abandoned house in the village of Tulgovichi, Khoiniksky District, located in 30 km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

29of48An abandoned school building in the village of Tulgovichi, Khoiniksky District, located in 30 km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

30of48A picture taken on April 22, 2106 shows a Soviet Union emblem set up on a street of the "ghost town" of Pripyat near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 22, 2016.

31of48Measuring radiation level in the village of Tulgovichi, Khoiniksky District, located in 30 km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

32of48A graffiti painting is seen in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

33of48A building is seen in the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 22, 2016.

34of48A picture taken on April 22, 2016 shows a deserted residential building in the "ghost town" of Pripyat near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

35of48A sign warns of radiation contamination near former apartment buildings on April 9, 2016 in Pripyat, Ukraine. Pripyat, built in the 1970s as a model Soviet city to house the workers and families of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, now stands abandoned inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a restricted zone contaminated by radiation from the 1986 meltdown of reactor number four at the nearby Chernobyl plant in the world's worst civilian nuclear accident that spewed radiaoactive fallout across the globe.

36of48A woman walks by a Ferris wheel in the ghost city of Prypyat near Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, on April 8, 2016.

37of48A stairwell stands in abandoned elementary school number five on April 9, 2016 in Pripyat, Ukraine.

38of48A children's seesaw stands among former apartment buildings on April 9, 2016 in Pripyat.

39of48A metal landing leads out to what was once a port for boats on the Pripyat River on April 9, 2016 in Pripyat, Ukraine.

40of48A statue of a Soviet Red Army soldier stands at a memorial to Soviet soldiers killed in fighting against the Germans in the region during World War II on April 9, 2016 in Zalissya, Ukraine.

41of48A calendar from the fateful year 1986 lies on the floor of a former hospital on April 9, 2016 in Pripyat.

42of48Tourists on a guided tour snap photos of one another outside an abandoned shop and apartment building on April 9, 2016 in Pripyat.

43of48Artur Vlasenko, 27, who is applying for a job at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, prepares to undergo precise screening for radiation levels in his body by scientist Galina Zadorozhnaya at the National Research Center for Radiation Medicine, a hospital and research institute established after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, on April 7, 2016 in Kiev.

44of48Visitors look over on the construction site of the Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel Dry Storage Facility (ISF-2) next to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Pripyat on April 22, 2016, ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of the nuclear plant disaster.

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Ukraine's Chernobyl might be on track to become 2019′s surprise tourism destination, after a widely discussed HBO miniseries resulted in a surge in bookings for trips to the site and the nearby town that were abandoned after a major nuclear accident in 1986.

Trip bookings for May of 2019 were 30 percent higher than May of 2018, and were up over the next three months, said Sergii Ivanchuk, director of SoloEast Travel that organizes trips to the nuclear power plant and its surrounding areas. Another tour company, CHERNOBYLwel.com, confirmed that its numbers also had increased.

On their tours, visitors usually head to the abandoned town of Pripyat next to the power plant, which was evacuated within hours, and other sites, including the former power plant itself. Radiation levels during the trips are considered to be safe, but the area around the power plant remains largely uninhabited until today.

HBO's Chernobyl - a mix of real events and fictional accounts - immediately hit a nerve when it was released this spring. The silence at the time from Soviet officials who were unwilling to acknowledge that the catastrophe had happened reminded some of the wavering trust they have in their own politicians to tell them the truth. The destructive power of nuclear energy triggered memories of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and the nuclear threats exchanged between President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un not too long ago.

Interest in the series itself echoes some of the big political debates of our time: truth vs. lies, Russia versus the West, and the realization that disasters can easily transcend borders.

The flocking of tourists to Chernobyl is likely to feed into another debate: How should we commemorate a human-made disaster of the scale of Chernobyl without turning the site that exposed hundreds of thousands to radiation into an adventure theme park?

At least one company is already advertising an HBO-themed trip for $185 per person, "revealing to the secrets and real stories of the events that occurred," as the company writes. Among the tour highlights are riding "in an armored patrol vehicle, in which the liquidators in 1986 made a radiation reconnaissance" and trying "a real lunch of power plant employees in the canteen of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant." The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The question how to commemorate the disaster while offering trips to it remains contentious among tour operators themselves. SoloEast Travel director Ivanchuk said that he was struggling to comprehend why some of his competitors were selling "fridge magnets, radioactive ice cream and canned air" near the site.

"It is disgusting and humiliating to those people who still work in Chernobyl or who come to visit their abandoned houses," Ivanchuk wrote to The Washington Post on Tuesday. "The 20th Century is full of 'Dark' events and suffering, and just like Auschwitz or Hiroshima, Chernobyl is one of them." Ivanchuk said that his company kept only about 15 to 18 percent of the trip revenue, handing over the vast majority to Ukrainian authorities.

The question how suitable the ruins of Chernobyl are as an adventure trip-themed tourist attraction isn't new, as excursions to the 19-mile "exclusion zone" have gained steady momentum over the last two decades.

But recent U.S. productions have put a new spotlight on the trend that some view with skepticism. In 2012, viewers around the world followed a group of tourists to the Chernobyl tragedy site in a movie called "Chernobyl Diaries." The U.S. production turned the somber site into the backdrop of a fictional horror story, in which adventure tourists have to fend off mutants who inhibit the area around the disaster zone.

In reality, the group of tourists would have probably bumped into fellow visitors rather than into mutated creatures.

By 2016, Ivanchuk's SoloEast Travel company was taking 7,500 tourists to the site annually, he said at the time.

Last year, the company had 11,000 customers.

"It used to be sort of extreme travel," Ivanchuk told The Washington Post in 2017. "You were very brave to go to Chernobyl in 2000. Now, not so much," he said.